Lorenz Curve, Entropy and the Methodology of Hierarchical Clusters in the Study of Tourist Density Pre and Post Covid

Abstract

One of the factors that can contribute to the sustainable development of local and regional communities is tourism. Tourist traffic, through its intensity, can be both beneficial, to the extent that the natural and anthropic resources of the respective communities are used responsibly, but it can also be harmful, when it is ignored or when its regeneration capacity is exceeded. In this context, an important indicator that evaluates the degree of load, as well as the efficiency of the management of tourist destinations, is the density of tourist traffic. The paper analyzes, on the one hand, the concentration of tourist traffic of Romanian and foreign tourists, as well as the degree of utilization of the accommodation capacity in operation, and on the other hand, the geographical distribution of the density of tourist traffic at the level of the counties of Romania. Methodologically, for the first objective, the Lorenz curve and Shannon Entropy were used, and for the second, the hierarchical cluster methodology.

Keywords

• lorentz concentration curve
• shannon entropy
• cluster analysis
• tourist traffic
• tourism density